self and living

I thought I would take a moment and sit down here to do some writing and share what I have been up to lately. I have recently started putting more time towards developing some acrylic paintings. Most or much of my focus these days goes towards developing my art business. So a big point for me that I have been walking for some time is the relationship between Art and Money. But this could also be understood as the relationship between ones passions and making money with ones passions. I am not sure how rare my situation is but I decided that I would pursue creating and selling art, essentially my passion, as how I would make my primary income and it has been an interesting journey. For the first 10 years after I graduated art school and begun pursuing my passion of creating art and turning that into my career, I never really sold much art and just found other ways to make money. My approach back then was simply to create art and frankly I never made art to sell. In fact I believed that if I was making art to sell then I would be a Sell Out and so I steered clear of that and went for a kind of purity (or so I believed) of just expressing myself and not bothering to worry about if it sold or not, though, I actually did want it to sell and I did want to make money off of it. Although during that time, even though I wasn’t really creating art with the mindset of making it to sell, I did still have external influences from the perspective of I did want other people to like what I was doing, they didn’t have to buy it, they just had to like it. But that is whole other point for a different blog.

After a time away from doing art as my primary focus I got back into it about 4 or 5 years ago and this time I ended up in a situation where I was making it and selling it and surviving off of it. Though the art I was making you could say was more geared towards a particular market or aesthetic preference that wasn’t necessarily my personal preference. And this has been quite a challenge for me to essentially take a subject or style that is not necessarily ‘my preference’ and then to find myself in it, to, Make it My Own so to speak.

I will also add here that “My Preference” is definitely something I am still getting to know and so am willing to do things that I believe are not my preference to actually investigate them deeply and see if I can connect to it on some level because honestly “my preference” I realize has been greatly influenced, directed, impulsed by my culture, parents, peers, society, ect, so I have am definitely willing to challenge “my preference” and to make actually walk that process of really understanding what it means to get to know Myself on a deep level and understand what I do really personally like and enjoy and make sure this is not just something that someone told me I like or I thought I was supposed to like it because everyone else did. Okay back to my point…

Over time and more so lately I have begun putting more time into painting and developing this more marketable line of work. And the question I have been walking and attempting to find the balance within is, that line between creating art to sell, that is marketable, and creating art for me where I can add my personal touch and take the art in directions that is more about my personal self expression and making sure that in the end the artwork contains depth and substance, than just making something to sell.

Okay going to add some Self Forgiveness Here.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear what other people will think about me if I create art that is marketable.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not consider that one can make marketable art that still has depth, substance, and quality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be distracted or dissuaded by my fears in a way where I don’t give myself the opportunity to test the theory of creating art that is marketable but also still has ME and My personal touch on it where I can create the depth, quality, and substance that I would like to.

I commit myself to assist and support myself to develop a style that is both marketable as well as having substance, quality, and depth to it so I can be proud and happy with the work I create.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself as a sell-out if I create art that is marketable.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to allow my fears to get the best of me where I will stop before even giving myself the chance to explore various ways of creating the Depth that I would like into my art while at the same time having it be something marketable and sellable.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to go into EGO within thinking “I am too good” to make art that sells, meaning where I essentially believe and have also judged others as “Just making art to sell” and believing that this compromises the artistic integrity within the art.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want my art to be good and fear diluting it through its relationship with money, but then not take this point BACK TO SELF and consider how HOW I LIVE and WHO I AM in my daily life within and without is for instance compromised by money or ultimately where I am actually compromising Myself and my own Quality and Substance by allowing myself to live in ways that is not best for me, but then divert my attention off of myself and just obsess about my art when the Real point here Should be about WHO I AM for real in real life because Who I am is what really matters.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear other people knowing that I am making art that is marketable because I fear they will lose respect for me and they will stop respecting the art I make.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that people think I am selling out.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear what other people think about me when what other people think about me is Not who I actually am, and who I actually am is what really matters and that is something that I Live and Walk and Express day by day and I am essentially the Gatekeeper of Who I am and am Responsible for who I am and must answer to myself with regards to what I accept and allow of and as myself and so I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to forget that Who I am and How I live moment to moment is really What Matters in this world

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get caught up in the surface dimension of worrying what other people think about my art and if they think I am selling out when this is like an irrational fear that is actually removed from who I am and what I live in real physical substance day to day and moment to moment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to influenced and directed by fear energy and anxiety energy in relation to what I thought or think people think about my art.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to focus too much on what my art looks like where it becomes a form of obsession where in I forget about ME and Taking Care of Myself and Working on points within myself to assist and support me to become and live to my utmost potential.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to obsess over my art and if other people will like it, and end up neglecting Myself and Working with myself in a process of Self Creation to become a Self that I am Satisfied and Happy with.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to ignore working on my inner reality through regular Self Writing and Self Forgiveness as a point of actually supporting myself to Correct, Change, and Transform those parts of myself that I see are not what they could be or are supporting me within my utmost potential. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to forget to work on these aspects of self, and just focus all of my attention outside of myself into my art, and art business.

I commit myself to LIVE HERE, and to when and as I see myself going into that dimension of obsessing about what others might think about my art, to stop and take and in breath, and within the exhale, I slow myself down and bring myself back to the moment and back to here and realize that what Really Matters is WHO I AM and that when I start worrying about what other people think about my art and how that reflects on me, I realize that here I am actually OFF POINT and so I bring myself back to THEE POINT which is ME and Self and Who I am within myself and How I am LIVING moment to moment and I commit myself to assist and support myself to place my attention HERE onto me and to assist and support myself to work on Myself and What Really Matters which is Who I am in each and every moment, So that I can stand and face myself and look myself in the Eye, and know that I am Living my Best Self and be actually truly Satisfied and Content with myself, and Love Myself.

Okay so the point that is actually coming through here, which I was thinking that this blog would be about anyways, is not so much about the relationship between ones passions and making money with ones passions, but rather when ones Passions become more important than SELF. Because I have been noticing this with myself lately where although I have been investing more time into my art which is cool, though, I have in a slight way have been neglecting the most important point which is ME and just working with myself on that Inner Deep level in a way where I am supporting ME within my Process of Personal Self Creation and Transformation and basically just working on WHO I AM in each and every breath.

I recently started reading a book written about Jack Ma and the creation of Alibaba which is one of the worlds largest online marketplaces. In reading about Jack and his enterprise I came across a couple examples of Ma’s definition of Success that I found to be very grounded, practical, and livable by anyone where he really took that point of success and boiled it down into something tangible, and accessible to everyone.

What I find interesting is that I have been deliberately working with the process of Re-defining and Living Words, and here this man actually did exactly this by coming up with his personal definition of Success that he could live and apply in his world in a way that supported him.

In the book, Ma defined it as follows,

“Success lies not in how much you have accomplished, but in the fact that you have done something, experienced the process, and begun to learn something”

What I like about this definition is it emphasizes not an outcome of good or bad, success or failure, but of THE ACT, the point of taking action and actually doing something – That is the success, the fact that you got off your but and applied yourself.

For me, I have been slowly starting to develop a new body of artwork and so I really relate to this definition of success because for me the most difficult part often is just getting up and DOING SOMETHING, or motivating myself to sit down in front of my canvas and start painting. Where that very action IS the success, not the outcome, but the ACT.

So here I see for myself that to be more successful requires me to take more action. On paper it looks easy, though I do understand that applying and living this definition of success may bring up other dimensions for me to consider and work out.

Okay that’s the point I wanted to Share!

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I recently had a meeting about a new business venture with my art that has been opening up the last couple weeks. So in this blog I am going to look at this dimension that I saw coming up within me in relation to this new point opening up. The dimension I noticed is that I saw this point within me of wanting this new venture, this new opportunity to be a kind of SAVIOR where I noticed lots of excitement coming up within me and so when I started looking at this experience of excitement more closely I noticed how it was connected to this idea and projection of “things changing” and within me where Id go into fantasies and hope of “everything changing for the better”

Now on the one hand, this opportunity could provide a platform for new changes in my life, however, I have also realized here that it is important to stay grounded and to support myself through bringing things back to Self.

So essentially, with all this excitement coming up, I looked at how I could stabilize myself and settle things down, and this is when I began to see this ‘Saviour’ point within me where I’d hope that this new point changes everything and changes my life. So in bringing this point back to myself, what I see, and realize is that no one is ever going to save me, and that ultimately I am the one who is always responsible for myself and my life, and so, I don’t actually require a Saviour, because I have ME and how I walk day by day.

So this was a cool point of Self Grounding to just re-focus my attention back HERE and back to Myself. This is important I see because this is where I am. I am HERE, in my life and so the BASICS still apply day to day, moment to moment.

I realize that I must embrace who I am right now and what my life is like right now and work with this ME and this Life PRACTICALLY and Support myself from HERE into a point of creating it into what I would like it to be through the daily support and application I walk for myself and my life and so thus to stop participating in the Desire for “The Game Changer” as in some external point that is going to come along and “Change Everything” which Is a form of hope I then would be participating with instead of just continuing to focus on what I am realizing more and more is the crux of my process which is WHO I AM IN EVERY MOMENT and how I am Walking Self Support and Self Creation in my moment to moment Life.

Okay so just sharing a bit here about this Savior Point that I noticed still existing within me as a hope, want, and expectation of some big event or person to enter into my life that changes everything instead of me just focusing on Me and walking the steps of daily support and creating myself and my life moment by moment, step by step and being willing to WALK THE PROCESS in real time and let go of that idea where I actually SKIP moments or ‘Jump Ahead’ through some magical game changing event that takes place.

I realize my best approach is to Walk Here, step by step, focusing on Who I AM now and what my life is like now, and walking the step by step actions of self change and self creation moment by moment, brick by brick.

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discovering and developing their utmost potentialeqafe.com – Invest in a wide range of Interviews and Support yourself to Self PerfectionJourney To Life Blogs – Read the blogs from those walking the 7 year journey to life.Self and Living – Practical Living Support To Live to Your Utmost Potential

The point here at the moment is ‘irritation’. I have noticed since getting home from work that things seem to be irritating me. I equate this to a few changes in some habits/routines lately where my mind is not getting the usual stimulus or the usual experiences it normally does so this irritation is a kind of symptom of withdraw from what its normally used to. But I also see that I actually tend to have days during the week where I feel irritated and highly strung where its like every little thing gets me irritated.

One dimension that I can see about my irritation experience at the moment is the ‘Time’ Dimension. What I am noticing is that tonight in particular I am feeling pressed for time. As I mentioned in my last blog, I have taken on a new project at work which requires more time to be put in at work as well as there being a tighter deadline for everything.

Today during the day, I did notice how I was giving more attention to the idea that “tonight I have a lot to do” So I was already thinking about this at work earlier, and when I got home tonight, my experience was similar – that I had a limited amount of time with a number of things that I needed to complete.

Today, I was also having the experience that I was behind in a couple things where I was participating in mental projections about this, and playing out in my mind, other peoples reactions to my view that I was late on a few things that I needed to get done.

So I can see how in participating throughout my day in these internal projections and playouts in my mind about how other people were reacting to my apparent lateness actually accumulate stress reactions within myself and so I am seeing my irritation tonight as an accumulation of all these accumulated stress points that I generated through participating within projections within my mind without awareness during the day/week

Okay, so I thought I would just open up a few dimensions to this irritation point for myself here in this blog to see more specifically what is happening and why I was suddenly experiencing this irritation for apparently no reason. Because there is always a reason for how we experience ourselves, and the fact that the ‘irritation’ seemed to come out of nowhere, indicated to me a perfect opportunity to learn something about myself and my experience that I wasn’t aware of before because if I was Self Aware, I wouldn’t suddenly be irritated ‘out of no-where’

I will often do this with point, where I will simply start with what ever experience is here in the moment, and I will start writing about it and opening it up as a basic way to develop self awareness and take Self Responsibility for Myself , My Life, and My Experiences and actually Empower myself instead of accepting and allowing experiences to ‘happen to me’ out of the blue and accept them as if there is nothing I can do.

One of the first ways I began walking my process with Desteni in the beginning is through participating on the forums. Now, 8 years later this option is still available to anyone first coming across desteni and wanting to walk their process Supporting themselves to move from Consciousness to Awareness. So one way to do this is by participating on the Open Forum.

For me, my participating on the open forum was more prominent early on. I would go there and I would ask questions about the material and ask questions about Self Forgiveness and about the mind and about consciousness and about all the new information and principles I was being exposed to. To me, at that stage everything was so new and mysterious and I was quite intrigued so I would ask questions on the forums and also give responses to anyone new just getting on there.

So in the beginning on the forums was the first stages of me starting to write about my mind and consciousness and basically starting to develop my ability to write about myself in a more detailed and in depth way. So the beginning stages of Self Introspection. I suppose now there is DIP Lite to support with that initial stage of just developing the vocabulary and structure to start deconstructing oneself in as many dimensions as one can.

So I really enjoyed that stage of my process where I would go, literally daily to the forums and post. It was also an opportunity for me to start directing my mind with awareness which was essentially a new thing for me with regards to the amount of awareness that I know had access to through what I was being introduced to with all things Desteni. So I used the forums to practicing Directing My Mind through Directing myself to write even though I experienced resistance, or to even go and be on the forums in the first place which was completely New to me as I had never done anything like that before, so I had some hesitancy and lots of mental chatter going on within me though, I simply directed myself to join the forums and investigate this whole Desteni thing out for myself!

So the open forum still exists, and there is also the Leadership forum for those individuals who have been walking their process for a certain length of time or who have shown a degree of commitment and meet the requirements for the leadership forum.

The forums have also expanded into other social media platforms like facebook, viber, skype ect, which I will leave for another blog.

A question that occurred to me the other day is “who am I without my art”. Another question, which often comes up within me in relation to my art is ‘how do I add or create real value with it?’ I was feeling quite discouraged with this question today, and a point that has come up within me in relation to this question of value is WHO AM I within what I do?

You see, I do art, and I am often analyzing, and pouring over ways and methods and ideas to ‘add value’ to this activity and mostly I end up feeling defeated by this pursuit. And so this evening as I was looking at this again, this question came up of WHO AM I within what I do, where, that doing, is the art I make. Because what I see is that ‘what I am doing’ is irrelevant and not where the real value exists. What I am seeing in this moment is the ‘real value’ exists within me and who I am, ans what I accept and allow of and as myself each day.

I see that I have gotten away from this point of Myself being the real value I have to offer.

What I find happens with me is that I end up focusing on WHAT I AM DOING, which would be my art and my career and I forget about myself, I forget about taking care of myself and nurturing myself and strengthening myself both within and without, and I just put my attention on my art and try to make that great and I kind of push the art to the forefront while I move myself into the background which is actually what I prefer anyways because in fact if I look at why I prefer this, it is because I am not satisfied with myself and my application and so I just prefer to be in the background out of sight.

So Who am I without my art. If I strip this away, and pose the question of how do I add value I can see the answer.

I can add value by and through who I am as how I interact with this world moment to moment. Its strange because each day I get up and go out into the world and interact with my world and the people in my world and I am doing this 24/7. Yet this 24/7 interaction gets missed with regards to how and where I can actually contribute value to this existence. I become so obsessed with thinking about how I can contribute value with my art and I forget about me and I forget about the fact that I as a life form am connected physically to this reality every moment of every day and I am having an influence.

My art doesn’t go out and interact with various people a day like I do. And so ultimately I am seeing and realizing that I require a bit of an adjustment within looking at and considering ‘how to add value’ where what I see is that I can add value with who I am and how I engage and interact with my reality, and so it isn’t practical to push my art into the foreground and then for me to retreat into the background and supress my own dissatisfaction towards and with myself while focusing all my attention on my art as ‘what I do’ while dismissing and ignoring ‘who I am’ and how I am, or, am not supporting myself, and how I am experiencing myself for real.

So here I commit myself to assist and support myself get back to what I am seeing as the true source of my value which is MYSELF and how I direct and support myself day in and day out, and here I commit myself to daily strip myself bare of my art and ask myself who am I without my art, and who I am in each moment and each breath as I move and interact and engage with my reality and I commit myself to support myself to contribute value in these moments and this interaction through by first creating and supporting myself to value myself through supporting me to live in a way that I am actually satisfied with me, and then from here I see that I can start bringing this personal Satisfaction I have for myself into my daily life because my daily life is always here and I am always engaging with it 24/7. I see that my art will never be able to add value like I can, as who I am within my living daily expression. I also see that my art will always just be an extension of my own Self Value as the Satisfaction I have for myself based on how I am supporting myself where this satisfaction can never be conjured up or manufactured, it will only ever be a Direct consequence of what I accept and allow of myself in every moment as my living application which in Self Honesty, I am fully aware of whether I am supporting and nurturing myself or not.

So here is an adjustment of value where I commit myself to realize daily that real value comes from who I am and how I am supporting me in self honesty to live and express within the principle of what is best for all.

I commit myself to remember that the value I contribute is happening in every moment based on who I am within and as myself and what I accept and allow of and as myself as a life form and so here I commit myself to stand within and as this awareness and see, realize, and understand here the importance of Supporting Myself Daily into and as a point of being Satisfied with who I am, because I, Self, is the first point of Value and so I see, realize, and understand that I must first stand within and as a point of Self Value before I can share this into the world, and so

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to underestimate and dismiss Self Value as an important first step in creating value within this world. And so I commit myself to creating Self Value through Supporting and Caring for myself as my Starting Point for creating Value in this world.

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Today I was discussing one of the art projects I am currently busy with and within the conversation I mentioned how I wanted the art I was making to ‘be the best’. As I spoke the words something didn’t quite sit right, yet a part of me believed what I was saying, where within myself my intention really was to make the best art possible.
Later on, once I got home, I realized why the point I spoke about earlier ‘didn’t sit right’ and I saw a slight re-alignment I could make within the statement to have it be a point I can really stand by.
Yes, I want my art to be the best, however, what I see here is it’s not actually so much about my art being the best, but that rather, I do my best within my creative expression.
So it’s not about comparison, and saying this art is better than that art, it’s simply about me ‘doing my best’ with the art I make. That is something that is within my power and direction to be able to do.
There are many different artists and people out there with different levels and skills and talents yet there is one thing that really unites everybody and that is our own expression in the moment, where regardless of our talents and degrees of skill, the point is to really push yourself and support yourself to do your best and to live and express to your fullest potential and that is equal with everyone in each moment.
So for me, with my art, this is what I see is most important. It is not whether or not my art is the best. That is subjective. What I see matters is the point of me doing my best within my expression and living to my utmost potential. This is not subjective, this is something that is personal and a point of Self Honesty where I can determine this for myself and that only I really intimately know if I am doing this and where I can do more or where I am really Standing within a point of living to my utmost potential.
So its not about being the best, it is about being your best.
This doesn’t mean to accept your flaws or accept a lesser version of yourself, it means to establish within yourself where you can improve and to support yourself within doing this to your utmost ability.

eqafe.com – Invest in a wide range of Interviews and Support yourself to Self PerfectionSelf and Living – Practical Living Support To Live to Your Utmost PotentialDIP Lite – Free Online Course to get you started with learning the Tools of Self SupportDIP PRO -A Desteni Course for those Ready to Walk the Journey of a Lifetime